The Crow: Graven Images (work in progress)
by bcampo
Summary: He was a happy man with a loving wife until THEY came~But they put a bullet in his brain and took the woman he loved~Now he has returned from beyond the grave, hellbent on revenge and in a race against time to save his wife from a fate worse than death.


The Crow: Graven Images   
by   
Brian Campo (bcampo@hotmail.com) 

* * *

**This is a work of Fan Fiction.** The Crow, it's character's and terms belong to Pressman films, and I in no way contest that ownership. All other characters are owned by me, though I would gladly loan them out if asked nicely. This story is in no way official and should not be taken as such. 

**Warning:** This story contains graphic violence, graphic sexual themes, adult situations, and harsh language. It is not intended for those with a weak stomach or too young to be reading it. If you don't think you should be reading it, don't. 

So I save a prayer   
For when I need it most   
To the Father, Son,   
And the Holy Ghost   
And sign it from   
A sinner with no name. 

When I meet my maker   
Will he close the book   
On the hearts I broke   
And the lives I took   
Will he walk away   
'Cause my soul's   
Too late to save 

--- J. Bon Jovi 

**1923- From** his post high atop the old mission, Angelo Giminez had a clear view of the surrounding country side and he didn't like what he saw. He could see what the men had done to the nuns that had lived in the mission, and he didn't mind admitting, it had him scared. This was an unforgivable crime, he was sure of it. He knew that there would be hell to pay for what the men had done. He had known it from the moment that Chavez had grabbed that nun up off of her knees and began tearing at her clothes. Raiding this mission had been a mistake, one that would end up killing them all. He didn't know what form death would take, be it a tornado, or disease or freak accident, but he did know it was coming. And he knew that they deserved it. Every last one of them. 

Angelo was fourteen years old. He had been brought into the gang two years before by his father, who stood to earn a little more money each week by having his son run errands for the members of the gang. Angelo's jobs included bringing food and water to the members of the gang while they lazed around during the hot hours, feeding and looking after the horses, cleaning shirts and long underwear in the river, and washing Chavez's feet.   
The latter proved to be the worst of the jobs. He could tolerate being kicked by one of the gang members if the food was cold when he got it to them. He could handle the endless insults and name calling. He could handle his father strapping him with a belt if he felt that Angelo wasn't working his hardest. But the smell of Chavez's feet was too much for anybody.   
Chavez was the leader of the gang. He was quick with his guns, and he wasn't above shooting a man in the back. He had a natural talent for planning out ambushes that made the gang very successful in their robberies. He wore a very nice pair of rattlesnake skin boots that were his proudest possession. The boots had been pulled off of a dead bandit who had been laying in the desert sun for about a month. And they smelled just like the maggot infested, rotting corpse they had been pulled off of. That didn't bother Chavez in the least. He had a pair of fine boots, and that was all there was to it.   
Angelo came in every night to pull the boots off of Chavez's feet and to wash the feet clean. (It took some tugging and pulling, as they were a little small, but again, it didn't matter to Chavez.) The first night, Angelo had to run from Chavez's tent to keep from vomiting at the smell. His father beat him severely and told him to go back. After that, cleaning Chavez's feet became a study in how long Angelo could hold his breath. He could never seem to hold it long enough to get the job done, and on top of that, Chavez would keep asking him questions. Eventually, he learned a little secret. If he cut off a piece of onion and stuck it up his nose, it would cover up the rotting corpse stench. His eyes would water and burn, but at least he didn't have to smell those feet.   
In time, the members of the gang grew to like Angelo, and they started taking it easy on him. Some of them even started teaching him how to shoot a gun, which his father thought was pure foolishness. He didn't stop his son from learning the gun, though, and by the time he was thirteen he could shoot very well with a rifle and wasn't too bad with a pistol. A few months later, his father was gunned down in southern Texas by Texas Rangers and Angelo was promoted to his father's old position in the gang. He never cried when his father was killed.   
Over the following months, Angelo became a killer. The first person he shot was a driver of a truck full of whiskey. The driver had pulled a shotgun from under his seat and had Chavez dead to rights when Angelo pulled out his pistol and shot him dead. He had cried then. He had ridden out into the sage brush and bawled like a baby while the rest of the gang drug the driver's body out of the truck and took the truck back toward the hideout. After that, the killing had become easier and easier, until there came a point where he didn't have to be in a life or death situation to pull his gun and use it. Chavez could point at an unarmed man and tell Angelo to shoot him, and Angelo would do just that. Since the day he had shot the driver, Angelo had never felt a thing for any of their victims. Until yesterday.   
The gang had heard that the monks at this mission up in the hills had a large stock of apple wine in the cellars below the mission. Chavez decided that they would ride up there and collect it as it would fetch a pretty penny up in the states.   
When they arrived at the mission, Angelo found himself surrounded by solemn beauty. The mission was built in a small valley, and was surrounded by about two square miles of apple orchards. It was late summer, and the apples were threatening to fall from their branches. The men helped themselves to the fruit by violently shaking the tree until the apples fell. Angelo ate one while he packed a dozen more into his saddle bag. He knew he was going to give himself the shits, but how often did he get to have fresh apples? It would be well worth the discomfort later.   
It was very quiet here. When the other men were laughing and shouting, Angelo had to fight the urge to tell them to be quiet. Could it be that he was the only one that felt it? There was power here, and the place demanded respect. Something was gnawing at his insides, telling him that he should get on his horse and leave.   
When they arrived at the mission, it turned out that there wasn't a lot of truth to the information they had been given. There were no monks at this mission, just nuns. The monks had left about twenty years before, and the wine had gone with them. The nuns had taken up the mission at that point and began giving aid to the nearby villages when they needed it.   
Chavez was very angry. He had ridden all this way for nothing, and he didn't handle disappointment well. He told his men to gather all of the nuns in the courtyard of the mission where they were to wait until he had decided what he was going to do. The nuns did as they were told, offering no resistance. Angelo felt his face flush with shame as he ordered the women around with his gun pointed at them. This was wrong. His knees were starting to shake now and he had to concentrate to keep them still.   
Chavez and some of the older members of the gang walked over toward the front of the mission where they could discuss the situation in private. Angelo watched them out of the corner of his eye, while he kept his gun trained toward the nuns. Not right at them, but in their general direction. Chavez was doing a lot of yelling and cursing, and he kept waving his arms around in the air. The other men were talking quieter, and sounded like they were trying to talk some sense into their leader. After a couple more minutes of this, Chavez waved the other boys off and stomped back over to the nuns. He looked into the group of twenty or thirty women and picked out a middle aged woman. He grabbed her by the robes and drug her out into the open while the other women gasped in fear. The nun he had grabbed dropped to her knees, crossed herself and began to pray quietly. Chavez dropped down into a crouch next to her and rested his ass on the heels of his boots.   
"What do you have here?" he asked the nun.   
The nun opened her eyes and said, "What do you mean?"   
"You have any money? Any gold? Anything worth anything?"   
"No, sir." said the nun. "We have no need of money. We grow all of our own food, and we trade food for our necessities."   
Chavez scowled and spit on the ground between them. "I've ridden a long ways." he told her. "I don't like thinking it was for nothing."   
"Please, sir. We have nothing. Search the mission. If you find anything you want, please take it. But leave us in peace."   
"Maybe we can work something out." said Chavez. He stood up and unbuttoned the fly of his trousers. He reached into his pants, did a little hopping motion, and then pulled his genitals into view. He let them hang in the nun's face for a few seconds, giving her a chance to look them over, waiting to see her reaction. Her eyes averted away from him, and she looked like she was going to be sick. "Suck it." he said. "If you suck me, we'll get on our horses and ride right out of here."   
The other nuns were crying now, and turning their faces away from the spectacle. Angelo's knees began to knock together, and there was suddenly a ten pound weight on his chest. Any second now, fire was going to drop from the sky. The nun in front of Chavez closed her eyes and began to sob. On the other side of Chavez, one of the other gang members was watching the scene with a smirk on his face.   
"Please don't do this." she begged. "If you have one shred of decency in you, you will not do this."   
Chavez waggled his limp penis at her and said, "Am I to take it that we do not have a deal?"   
The woman offered no reply, she simply lowered her head and said, "Please, Jesus. Be with me."   
"Hey, Chavez!" shouted one of the men. "I think she thinks your name is Jesus!"   
Chavez laughed and reached down to grab the nun. "I'll be with you, all right."   
He yanked her to her feet and began tearing her clothes off of her. Like hungry dogs who have caught a whiff of blood, the other men closed in on the the group of nuns. Some of the younger girls screamed and tried to run. The older women stared down the men defiantly. Angelo found himself frozen in place, unable to make himself move. The men were dragging the women out of the mission now, and out into the surrounding orchards. The sound of wailing and crying filled the air, and Angelo could hear them praying for God, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary, anyone who would listen to them.   
As there were more nuns then men, Angelo was left with his gun pointed at four women that hadn't been taken. Two of the four looked like they were in their sixties or seventies, the other two were in their late thirties. They were watching him, staring at him and his gun intently. Every time one of the other women would scream or cry out, the four women would flinch and glare at Angelo harder. The shame he felt was too much, he had to turn away from their gaze.   
"What's wrong?" asked one of the younger women in a stern voice. "Aren't you going to join your friends?"   
Angelo shook his head. This was an uncomfortable position for him. He wanted to tell the woman to run, but knew he would be at the very least beaten severely for it. Most likely he would be shot. Chavez wasn't going to understand this terror that he was feeling, and he definitely wasn't going to let it slide if Angelo helped some of the women escape.   
A gunshot rang out, making Angelo and the four nuns jump all at the same time. Their eyes were boring through him now.   
"You don't seem like you want to be here." said the woman who had spoken before.   
Angelo said nothing.   
"Don't let them take us. If you won't let us go, then at least kill us before they can get to us."   
"I can't." muttered Angelo.   
"We're dead anyway." said the nun. "When they've had their fun, they're going to kill us. Save us the suffering. Ease your conscience, maybe."   
Angelo tried to ignore her.   
The nun studied him, seeing the indecision and internal conflict written clearly on his face. "Would it would be easier for you if we were trying to escape?"   
Angelo turned then and looked her in the eye.   
"It's not like you could let us get away. You would have to shoot us."   
Angelo continued to stare at the nuns. "Please don't." he whispered. "Don't make me." His eyes were starting to sting and he could feel the tears starting to form.   
The women looked at each other, and nods of agreement went between them. They hugged each other, planted kisses on each others cheeks and whispered that they would meet on the other side. Angelo watched them say their good byes, and clenched at his belly with his free hands. The worry and dread he was feeling had his gut burning something awful.   
Each woman reached out and took the hand of the woman next to her. They turned away from Angelo and started to walk very slowly toward the back of the mission. Angelo stood still, trying to decide what he should do. They were right, Chavez would want him to shoot them rather than let them get away. Still, he didn't know if he could bring himself to shoot a nun.   
"Do what's right." the woman called back to him.   
Making up his mind, Angelo clenched his jaw and raised the pistol in his hand. He aimed carefully at the back of one of the "escaping" nuns, thumbed back the hammer, and pulled the trigger. The gunshot tore off the top of the woman's head and threw her forward with such force that she nearly drug the other woman to the ground with her. They dropped to their knees and continued staring away from Angelo. Tears welled up in his eyes as he cocked the hammer, and took aim once again. The gun roared again, and then twice more in quick succession.. When it was finished, Angelo dropped down to sit in the dirt, and tried his best to wipe the tears away.   
The crying and praying and begging from the orchard continued into the early morning hours. 

Father, please forgive me   
For I have done wrong.   
The man's too big,   
The man's too strong.   
-Mark Knopfler 

Now, a day later, Angelo sat in the hot sun on voluntary guard duty. He knew death would be coming for him and the rest of the boys, and he wanted to see it when it arrived. From his high position, he could see most of the surrounding orchards. Between the branches of the trees, he could see the bodies of the nuns who had been used and shot where they lay the day before. It was obscene, he thought. Just the day before, he had been thinking about what a peaceful place this was. It was tainted now. Instead of peace and beauty, everywhere he looked, he saw a naked woman with a bullet hole in her head and her legs spread. He had become so sick of the situation, he was beginning to wish that death, in whatever form it would take, would just show up and be done with it. He didn't care if he was killed, as long as Chavez got it first, and he got it bad. He had always feared Chavez, but it was more than fear now. Mixed in with that fear there was a loathing hate. He wished the worst kind of death on the man.   
He hated the man for putting him in a situation where the best thing he could was to shoot four innocent nuns in the back of the head. He hated everything about the man, from his stinking boots to his filthy mouth. Just let me live long enough to see him dead, he prayed.   
Death showed up at four pm precisely. Angelo had started to doze off in his eighth hour on guard, but he quickly awoke to the sound of a loud squawk. He opened his eyes to see a crow circling the mission. He scrambled to his feet from where he had been laying, looking to see if there were more crows getting at the dead bodies below. What he saw made his blood run cold. There was someone coming up the road to the mission. It was a man and he was dressed all in black, with a pancho that was so long in the back it might have been considered a cape. His face was unnaturally white, so pale that Angelo thought it might be makeup. The man wore two gun belts across his hips, had a shoulder holster on each side containing forty-five automatics, had a repeater rifle in a scabbard on his back, and was carrying a shotgun in his hands that was cut so short it looked like a derringer with a glandular problem.   
Angelo had no doubts as to the man's identity or his reason for being there. He was death.   
Angelo knew that he should be shouting a warning down to the men in the mission below but figured that it would only delay the inevitable. They were all going to die. Angelo continued to watch the man as he came closer to the mission, and then watched him disappear through the front gates. The boys down below wouldn't know what hit them. They had been up late the night before and were getting their rest during the afternoon hours. They were trusting Angelo to keep watch while they slept. And why shouldn't they trust him? He had volunteered after all.   
Angelo crossed the width of the wall he was standing on, so that he could see what the man was doing in the mission's courtyard below. The man had stopped in the middle of the courtyard, and was taking off his pancho. The crow that had been circling the sky drifted down into the mission and landed on the man in black's shoulder. The man was talking to it. Angelo couldn't hear what he was saying, but the man was looking over at the crow, and his mouth was moving. The crow cawed and jumped into the air. The man drew one of the forty five revolvers from his hips and crossed the courtyard to where one of the bandits was sleeping under a cart. He gave the man's legs a good solid kick with the toe of his boot and then stepped back. The man under the wagon cursed loudly and came out from under the wagon with his gun drawn. The man in black shoved the shotgun under his nose and pulled the trigger.   
Over the next fifteen seconds, the mission came alive. Men came running out of doorways, looking like they were still half asleep but with guns drawn.. The man in black dropped the shotgun into his empty holster and opened up with his Colt. He was a viscous killer, Angelo realized. He wasn't out for killing shots, he was giving out slow painful death shots. Gut shots, lung shots, crotch shots, anywhere that would bleed a lot and hurt more.   
The gang was getting shots off at him, and they were hitting the man when they fired. It didn't seem to bother him. He just recovered from the force of the bullet, and then he fired back at the man who had shot him. He wasn't human. That was all there was to it. The man just mowed through Chavez's gang like they were standing still. He emptied his revolvers, then he emptied his automatics, next the repeater rifle. When his guns were dry, he started picking up weapons from the fallen gang members. He was a whirlwind of death, standing out in the open for all to see, for anyone to shoot at. They couldn't hurt him, but he hurt them plenty. In a matter of minutes, the numbers of gang members were dwindling. He spun in circles, his guns spitting lead in all directions. He laughed at them when they screamed. He laughed.   
The gang's membership continued to decline until there were only two left. Chavez and Angelo.   
Chavez rushed out one of the mission's many doorways and charged the man with both of his forty five's blazing. Chavez hit the man with every shot, making him do a little dance backward across the courtyard. When Chavez's guns were empty, the man stopped stumbling and jerking backward. He stood up straight, smiled and walked back toward Chavez. The gun in his hand spit fire and roared and Chavez's knee collapsed out from under him. The man in black dropped down onto one knee next to Chavez and began to talk to him in a low voice. Again, Angelo couldn't hear the words, but he could see that Chavez was moaning and agreeing to everything this man had to say. When the man in black was finished speaking, he stood up, aimed the gun at Chavez's chest and pulled the trigger.   
Death dropped his tools. He let the gun in his hand fall to the ground, and then began unbuckling the gun belts and shoulder holsters. The crow dropped back down into the mission and cawed at the man. The man listened to it for a second, and then turned around. He looked up onto the wall, right at Angelo.   
The boy considered using the rifle in his hands. He could hit the man from here, easy. But what would be the point? How many times had the man been shot during the fight? He just held the gun and watched as the man crossed the courtyard to a set of stairs that would lead up to the top of the wall. The man ascended the stairs and came around the top of the wall toward Angelo. As he came closer, the boy was over come with terror. He didn't care if the gun wouldn't stop it, he raised the rifle and jacked in a round. The man was on him a second later and snatched the rifle out of his hands. The rifle butt was jammed into his belly, knocking the wind out of him and forcing him to fall to the ground. The man threw the gun down off of the wall and then crouched down next to Angelo. He watched the boy gasp as he tried to catch his breath, a stern look on his face. After a minute, when Angelo's breath had become regular, the man spoke.   
"Do you know what a code of honor is?"   
Angelo shook his head at the man.   
"A code of honor," the man continued. "is a set of rules and guidelines that a man sets for himself to live by. When you find yourself in a position that you have to fight evil men, then a code of honor is necessary. By living by it, you ensure that you do not become like the men you are fighting. It is the truest test of a man when you see if he sticks by it when it seems like he has no choice but to break it."   
My code of honor does not allow me to kill women and children. This poses a dilemma for me. You are a member of the gang that killed me, and my family. And not just them, either. You killed many others, too. You've killed so many that I can smell the blood of all your victim's wafting off of you like a perfume. You don't even flinch when you put your guns against their heads and pulled the trigger. You have no respect for life, and you have no respect for the dead."   
I can't kill you, though everything in me tells me to do just that. You are but a child, and killing you would violate my code of honor. It would make me less of a man." He pounded his chest with his fist. "It would make me like one of them." He pointed down at the corpses in the courtyard. "On the other hand, I can not let you go on as you are. You have been trained to kill without remorse and you will continue to do so until someone finally kills you. This is not an option."   
What I have decided to do with you is to teach you to have a respect for life and a respect for the dead. And then I will leave you to live your life."   
It took a moment for Angelo to get it. As it sank in, he realized that the man intended to let him live. "You-You're not going to kill me?"   
"In the coming years," said the man in black. "you will wish that I had."   
The man leaned forward and grabbed the boy's head in his hands. He closed his eyes and Angelo screamed. Something was coming through the man's hands and into his head. He tried to jerk away, but the man held him fast. Images flashed in front of Angelo's eyes so fast that he couldn't even see what they were. He could feel things moving around in his head. He could hear a scream in the distance, but couldn't tell if it was himself or someone else doing it. Distant voices began to speak, and they increased in volume until it sounded like a whole room full of people were whispering in his ear at the same time. He heard wailing, and cursing, begging, pleading, crying, men's voices, women's voices, children laughing.   
The hands holding his head let go and the boy collapsed on the stone wall. He spasmed violently, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he lay still.   
The man in black walked away and the Crow followed. 

**1998- **Jesse tipped off his baseball cap and used his arm to wipe the sweat from his brow. Even with the breeze blowing in off of the coast, it was still way too hot. He had been born and raised in the state of Washington, where it rained most of the time and a seventy degree day was considered a scorcher. This Mexican heat was nearly throwing his body into shock. He'd had a bottle of drinking water in his hand almost every moment since he had arrived here four days before. When his wife, who was originally a southern california girl, asked him to take her to Mexico for their fifth anniversary, she hadn't realized what she was asking of him.   
He strolled along behind Mandy as she found new and creative ways to separate them from the contents of their pocket book here in the shops of the city's marketplace. She had lead them into this small wood working shop a little earlier and had been oohing and ahhing their way around the place for fifteen minutes. He had satisfied his curiosity after about two minutes, but Mandy insisted on examining every piece in the shop and showing it to him.   
"Oh, honey." she said, that pleading sound that he had learned to fear creeping into her voice. "Will you look at this ?" She was running her hand over an oak cradle with puppy dog eyes in full bloom. He had to admit, it was an exceptional piece of craftsmanship. The cradle looked to be solid as a rock, and had an intricately carved little railing running around the top. The railing was carved in the shape of circus animals, with little wooden giraffes, elephants, and zebras.   
"Why would we need that? It's not even safe to discuss buying something like that." he told her. "You start having these discussions and you might as well throw away the birth control, because talking about buying baby stuff renders it ineffective."   
She rolled her eyes at him. "I don't want to have a baby now, I just want to get this cradle while I have the chance. Just imagine years from now, I'm pregnant, hormones racing, very emotional. And I don't have the cradle that I wanted so much for the baby because you wouldn't let me buy it. You would never hear the end of it. Some guys have to get up in the middle of the night to go get pickles and ice cream, but you, you're going to have to drive to mexico to find a cradle that may not even be there anymore. Seems like you would want to save yourself the trouble, that's all."   
He sighed long and hard and said, "See how much they want for it." He turned and wandered back farther into the shop, relishing the coolness of it's shade. Behind him, he heard Mandy start trying to ask the young woman working in the shop questions in broken spanish.   
"It's ok." said the woman. "I speak english." She spoke it much better than Mandy spoke spanish, that was for sure.   
Jesse had reached the dim recesses of the back of the shop and saw an old man sitting at a work table, sanding on a block of wood. He must be the craftsman, thought Jesse. Already the block of wood that the old man was working on was beginning to take form. It would be a bull, jumping into the air and kicking out it's back legs.   
The old man sat his sandpaper down on the work bench very carefully and then slid his hand over until it came to rest on a chisel, which he picked up. There was something overly exact and careful about his movements that seemed strange to Jesse. He watched the man for a few more seconds and realized why. The man was blind.   
"Holy shit." said Jesse, starting to grin. He looked around the shop, seeing it with new eyes. A blind man had made all of these things. "Incredible." was all he could say. He turned to his right and jerked in fright at what he saw hanging on the wall.   
"Jesus!" he shouted, nearly dropping his water bottle as he quickly backed away from them. In a moment, he realized what he was really seeing. Mandy and the shop girl had heard him shout, and they were quickly coming across towards him.   
"I'm sorry." he said, turning to toward them and starting to laugh. "Those things scared the hell out of me."   
There was a little recess in the shop's wall, closet size, and hanging from the walls in there were what appeared to be bodies. On closer inspection, they turned out to be life sized, very realistic looking marionettes.   
"No, I am sorry, sir. They are very life like. You are not the first that they have startled. We put them back in that cubby hole in hopes that they won't scare people."   
The old man said something in spanish, and the girl replied to him. He laughed and shook his head as he turned back to his carving. Jesse felt his face flush red, but found himself laughing, too.   
"What are they?" he asked the woman.   
"They are grave advocates. My grandfather makes them for local families who lose loved ones out on fishing boats. Since there is no body to bury, he makes these and they are buried in the person's place."   
"They are very realistic." said Jesse as he leaned in for a closer look. The detail on the carving was amazing, even the wrinkles in the eyelids were visible. He kept expecting one of them to open it's eyes and say hello. "Do the people really look like this?"   
"Si." she said. "The families that come to claim the advocates are always shocked at how much they look like their loved one. We've even had mothers faint when they see them."   
"I don't understand. How does he know what the people look like? He's blind, isn't he?"   
"I don't understand it either. He says that the spirit of the person comes to him, and he can see them in his head. He doesn't even meet the family first. If there is a boat lost at sea, he starts carving. The local families know what he does, and they usually show up not too long after. Sure enough, when they see what he's made they say, "It looks just like my boy."   
"You think he's psychic?"   
"I don't know what he is. I just know it's real."   
"Why are these here?" asked Mandy, indicating the ones that had frightened Jesse.   
"They haven't been claimed yet. Sometimes the fisherman who die at sea aren't local. They are from farther up or down the coast and their families don't know what papa does. So, the advocates stay here until they are claimed. A couple of times we've had families come in years after they lost their sons. Papa says they will all be claimed in their own time."   
She turned to Mandy and asked if she would like to have the cradle put in a box. Mandy said yes and followed the woman back to the front of the shop. Jesse stared at the advocates for a few seconds more and then turned to follow his wife. 

"So, how much was it?" he asked her after they had left the shop and were walking back up the street.   
"You don't want to know." said Mandy. "But I'm happy, and isn't that what matters?"   
He made a low muttering sound and she smiled sweetly in reply. "I'm hungry." she said, so they started looking for a restaurant. Down by the docks, they found a little place that had fresh fish and they went in for a late lunch. As the waiter walked away with their order, Jesse sipped from his glass of ice water and watched the people walk by on the street outside. He took a little of the condensation off of the side of the glass and wiped it across the back of his neck. While he was enjoying this relaxing little vacation, part of him couldn't wait to get home and out of this heat.   
"Why don't you want to have any kids?" asked Mandy. She was a straight to the point kind of girl, she didn't like to beat around the bush. He looked at her for a moment, choosing his words carefully.   
"I didn't say I don't want to have kids. I just don't want to have them now, that's all. We're both still young, we'll have plenty of time for that later on."   
"How long are you wanting to wait?"   
He took another drink, more for a reason to stall his answer than because he was thirsty. "I don't know, when we are in our early thirties?"   
"You want to wait another seven or eight years?" The look on her face told him that he had given the wrong answer.   
"Why?" he asked. "How long are you wanting to wait?"   
"I don't want to wait." she said.   
"I thought you said you didn't want to have a kid now when we were back there getting the cradle?"   
"I lied."   
"Do you know what having a kid would mean? How we would have to change everything to work around the kid? We sure couldn't do stuff like this little vacation we're on. Why now? I thought we decided we would wait until later to have kids."   
"That was four years ago when we decided that, Jesse. This is later."   
"Why do we have to bring this up right now? This is supposed to be a vacation, where I can relax and don't have to worry about anything."   
"I brought it up here because there is never enough time for us to discuss it at home. Between our two jobs, there isn't a lot of time for us to discuss anything. Here, we've got no distractions."   
"If we're that busy, then how do you think we could handle a kid?"   
"I'll quit my job. You make more than enough to cover the bills."   
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, knowing that he was going to lose this battle. Maybe not today, but over the next few weeks, surely. All it took was a forgotten birth control pill here and there. He would lose, and she would have a baby. It wasn't like he couldn't tolerate the idea, he just didn't want to appear willing. "I will not go quietly into the night!" he shouted in his head.   
"It just seems so unnatural." he said. "You don't plan a baby. You sure as hell don't ask the man whether he wants a baby. You just let it happen by accident. That's how it's done."   
"I could have forced an accident." she said. "But I wanted you to want a baby, too."   
He chuckled, wondering if she had been reading his mind a few moments earlier. "So, if I didn't want one, we wouldn't be having one?"   
"No. I'd be a bitch to live with, but I wouldn't spring one on you." There was that straight to the point brutal honesty, again.   
"Do we have to decide right now, here at this table?"   
"No, you can have a few days while I try to convince you of how much fun the process can be."   
He grinned at that, his face turning colors. She laughed at him, guffawing so loud that other patrons looked over at their table. "You're such a doof." she said. "All I have to do is mention sex and you turn all the shades of the rainbow."   
"Yeah, well some of us had parents that denied the existence of anything called sex."   
In her best Fox Mulder impression, she said, "After all we've been through, after all we've seen, how can you still not believe?"   
"Who's the doof?" he asked. 

They stayed at the restaurant a while after they had finished their meal, drinking Mexican beer and listening to the band that had shown up at four o'clock. There was no more talk of babies, for which Jesse was grateful. The band's mariachi was very good and the sounds of his guitar very soothing. After about six beers, Jesse found himself getting buzzed. He told Mandy as much and she made fun of his slur. Apparently, he was a little drunker than he realized. He had always been a light weight when it came to alcohol. Mandy, who had done a lot of partying in her teenage years, could drink him under the table any day of the week. Not wanting to stumble back to the hotel drunk, he switched his drink of choice to shirley temples (which earned him a smirk from the waitress) and let himself start to sober up over the next few hours.   
Mandy pulled her chair over and cuddled up closer to him. He put his arm around her and rubbed his fingertips across the bare skin of her upper arm. He could remember when to do such a thing, he would have to spend ten minutes building up the courage. When he had first met Mandy, he had been painfully shy. She was anything but shy, and when it seemed like they would never have their first kiss, she had stood on her parent's porch and said, "Are you going to kiss me or what?" How much had changed over the last seven years? How many things that used to seem like gifts from god were commonplace now? He knew that he still loved her. More now than ever. Their love had just aged, matured. The two of them had grown closer together, sometimes in ways that neither of them realized. They just showed their love in different ways now. What used to require steaming up the windows in his dad's car could now be shown with a simple touch on the arm. Not that they didn't still steam up the windows every now and then.   
When he felt like his head had cleared up some, he asked Mandy if she was ready to head back to the hotel. The hotel had a bar and lounge, so they could get drinks there if they were still in the mood. She agreed, so they paid the bill, grabbed the cradle, and left.   
Outside, the sky was turning red in anticipation of the sunset. It was still hot, but not like earlier in the day when the sun would damn near melt you into your shoes. There was a little breeze blowing, and when it blew through Jesse's sweat dampened shirt, it cooled him considerably. He thought that maybe he would jump into the shower when they got back to the room and rinse off. Maybe Mandy would join him.   
"I don't want to walk all the way back." she said, waving her hand at one of the cabs driving by on the street. Most likely, she was buzzed more than she cared to admit and didn't want him to see it. He didn't mind, he'd rather take a cool cab ride then walk. The cab pulled up to the curb and Mandy opened the door. Inside, she told the driver what hotel they were staying at and he pulled out into traffic.   
"Are you glad we came down here?" she asked Jesse.   
"Sure." he said. "It was fun. Hotter than your average day in hell, but I still had fun. I could get into this siesta thing back at the office."   
She leaned up and kissed him on the corner of his mouth. He smiled and kissed her back, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her closer to him.   
Up front, the driver picked up his radio and spoke a long string of spanish, only two or three words of which Jesse understood. Yes', no's, and street names mostly. The car slowed for an intersection and came to a stop. Mandy kissed him again, a little more passionately this time, pulling his attention back to her. He could smell her perfume, which was mingled with the smell of her sweat and the alcohol that she had drank earlier. It wasn't unpleasant, in fact the opposite. It reminded him of nights of drunken sex when they first got together, which he hoped they would re-enact later in the hotel room.   
On the driver's side, a white van pulled up next to the cab. Jesse barely noticed that it was there, as he was lost in his wife's kiss. A few moments later, the traffic ahead of them moved forward, but the cab and the van remained still. Jesse pulled his mouth away from his wife, trying to see what was going on. Another white van pulled up to their right. The hair on the back of Jesse's neck began to stand up.   
"Why aren't you going?" he asked the driver, who only stared into the rearview mirror and said nothing.   
"What's wrong?" asked Mandy, realizing that her husband's mood had just taken a major turn for the worst. She turned to the right and the left, taking in the white vans and beginning to understand the situation.   
The side doors on both vans slid open, revealing five or six men in each van. They all had guns. They stepped out of their vans and walked up to the windows of the cab.   
Jesse leaned forward and told the driver to go. The driver had turned himself halfway around in his seat and held a gun, which he had trained on Jesse. The men outside tapped on the glass of the windows with the barrels of their guns.   
"Get out!" he heard one of them say.   
"What the hell is this about?" he shouted at the driver, his fear melting into anger.   
"They want you to get out." said the driver. He didn't look like he liked the idea of being in this close of quarters with Jesse. His finger stroked the trigger nervously.   
Jesse lunged forward over the seat, grabbing the driver's gun hand and slamming it into the dash. The gun went off, shattering the passenger side window. Jesse drove his left elbow into the driver's jaw, smacking his head into the steering wheel. Jesse's door opened and rough hands grabbed him. They dragged him back into the back of the car and out through the door. He fought for all he was worth, punching at anyone and everyone, and lashing out with his sandaled feet. On the other side of the car, he heard Mandy shout his name. They were dragging her out of the car and towards the other van.   
Jesse went a little nuts. He grabbed the nearest of his attackers and punched him in the nose with the heel of his hand. The bridge of the man's nose cut through his own skin and into Jesse's hand, but Jesse didn't feel it. It was all rage and animal instinct now. Jesse grabbed someone else, and spun them back toward the car. He cracked their back across the edge of the open cab door, and the man fell to the ground screaming. They had Mandy in the van now, and a couple of the men on that side of the car were coming over to help the others with Jesse. Six men all together. Jesse would have to wade through six of them to get to his wife. He would do it. He rushed them, shoulders held low like a linebacker.   
A gunshot rang out. He saw blood splatter across the side of the cab, and felt warm syrup running down the side of his head. Almost lazily, he spun, the world spinning quickly in the opposite direction. He caught a glimpse of a man holding a smoking revolver, and there were bits of hair and bone clinging to the gun's barrel. He heard his wife shout out, and wanted desperately to answer her, but then he hit the ground and the world went away. 

When she heard the gunshot, Mandy's body began to shudder. Not shivers, violent racking shudders that made her gasp in pain. She could feel the force of the convulsions in her lower spine, like someone was trying to tie the muscles in her back into knots. She knew what had happened. They had her pinned face down to the floor in the van with the door closed, so she couldn't see a thing, but she knew. She shrieked at the top of her lungs, but the wad of cloth that they had stuffed in her mouth and the strip of duct tape they had wrapped across it muffled the sound. They had killed him. She knew it. She screamed and shoved against the two men holding her down, but it did no good. They were each twice her size and she wasn't going anywhere. 

Jack Goodreau slipped his still smoking .357 magnum into his shoulder holster and took control of the situation. He stepped over his victim's body and pounded the flat of his hand on the roof of the cab.   
"Go!" he shouted at the driver. "Get out of here!"   
The driver, who was still rubbing his jaw, did as he was told and slipped the car into drive. He pulled away from them and turned left at the intersection. Jack turned back to the group of scared looking mexicans and started handing out orders. Ricky and Paulo he told to pick up Juan, who's back injury was going to be a problem, Jack could tell. Andre's crushed nose was bleeding something viscous, and the pain was making it where he couldn't keep his eyes open. The damage looked like something that Jack thought he would get over. Jack told Eddie to help Andre into the van and told everyone to mount up. They needed to be out of here, and they needed to be out of here now.   
"What about the corpse?" Eddie asked. He kicked the body with the toe of his boot as he walked Andre past it..   
"Leave it. It ain't exactly a witness anymore, is it? We'll meet you at Rio Bermeja in an hour. Don't be late."   
Eddie acknowledged with a "Yes, sir." and got into the van. Jack crossed back over to the other van and stepped up into it. Once he had the door shut behind him, he told the driver to go. His boys had the woman cuffed at the wrists and ankles, and then had her legs pulled up behind her and tied to the chain of her hand cuffs. She was laying on her side and screaming through the gag on her mouth. Tears were streaming from her eyes, and those eyes, they had murder in them.   
He knelt down next to her and said, "Shut up. I want you to hear what I am about to say."   
She continued shrieking and tried to scoot away from him. He grabbed her by her shoulder, and then placed the thumb of his other hand right behind her jawbone. He applied pressure, and he could tell by the way her eyes threatened to roll up in her head that it hurt. He knew, it hurt a lot.   
"When you are ready for the pain to go away, you stop screaming and listen to me."   
The screaming stopped, and the only noise she was making was a whimpering, rasping sound. He knew it was involuntary and removed his thumb from her jaw.   
"I think we are going to get along just fine, miss. My name is Jack, and I have a job to do. My job is to bring you unharmed to the men that hired me. What you need to know is that I will finish the job. What you need to decide is how hard you want to make it on yourself. You can make this a semi pleasant trip or you can make it a journey through hell. While I am not allowed to leave any marks on you, we both now know that I can cause you a great deal of pain with out leaving any bruises. That was just one spot on your body, I know hundreds more that would make what you just felt seem like an irritating itch. If you fuck with me, if you make one sound, I'm going to start showing them to you. Do you understand? Blink once for yes, twice for no."   
There was a pause, and then she blinked one time.   
"Good." said Jack. "I knew we were going to get along. For right now, I would just relax and try to get some rest. You're going to need it."   
She dropped her head to the floor of the van, closed her eyes and cried. 

About an hour outside of the city, the van with Mandy and Jack riding in it turned onto a overgrown side road. The road was rough and the van's suspension squeaked and moaned as it bounced it's way down it. Jack, who was riding shotgun, braced his hand against the dashboard and rode it out. The road ended in a sandy washout next to a small river. The river bank, for the most part, was made up of red clay, which was where it got it's name, "Rio Bermeja".   
The other white van had beat them there, and was parked with it's back doors open. A pair of legs hung limply out the back of the van. Andre was down by the water, washing the blood off of his face and blowing large clots of the stuff out of his nostrils. The rest of the boys looked nervous. Jack knew why they were scared. They had made some screw ups back there and they were uncertain what Jack intended to do about it. Jack figured that between seeing Juan get his back broke and Andre' getting his face smashed, the boys were going to be on their toes from now on. A reprimand would not be necessary. Not that they needed to know that. Sometimes it was better to let them sweat it out.   
He liked the fact that this little band of killers and rapists lived in fear of him. When he had been hired into this operation three years back, the crew he was put in charge of spent more time trying to kill each other than doing their job. He had put the fear of god into them, putting an end to each and every little squabble with swift and brutal force. Once they learned that threatening one of their coworkers could earn them a broken arm, they stopped fighting amongst themselves so much. Since then, there had been less screw ups on the job, and more girls getting snatched without a hitch. This made his employers happy, and when his employers were happy, they paid more money.   
His employer had hired him straight out of a mexico city jail. He had been on the run from the army down here south of the border and had gotten himself into a little bit of a bar fight. Three of the men had died, and four others had been hospitalized. He was arrested and awaiting extradition back to the states when a lawyer representing his employers came to him with a job offer. The offer? Immediate release from jail, room, board, excellent pay, and an opportunity to use his military skills on a daily basis. The lawyer said that the men interested in hiring him were impressed by his fighting skills, but they were more interested in his last official rank as lieutenant, which meant that he knew how to handle men.   
When he found out what his job entailed, at first he had qualms about it. Those were quickly squashed, though, when he got his first payday. They were paying him more for a month's work then he could make in a year north of the border. He was given regular bonuses and incentives over the coming months, encouraging him to work even harder. And he had to admit, he had grown to enjoy his job. You never knew how much you knew until your knowledge was put to the test. Back in the army, they did a lot of training, but rarely saw any combat situations. Here, he was confronted with life or death situations every day, and was finding out that he was more prepared for them than he would have originally thought. He had money, he had men that snapped to it when he told them to, and he had a great job. Jack Goodreau was a happy man.   
He threw open the door to the van and got out. Jack started down toward the river and Eddie jogged over to catch up with him. Jack asked him how Juan was doing.   
"Not so good." said Eddie. "He's having a hard time breathing, and he can't feel his legs."   
"I figured he was pretty well fucked when I heard him scream back there. We're going to need to dig him a hole out here."   
"You're just going to let him die?" asked Eddie.   
Jack gave him a look that clearly said, "You ought not be questioning me, Eddie."   
"No, I'll make it quick for him." he said, before kneeling down on the river bank. He stared splashing water up his right arm and scrubbing at it with his fingernails. The blood and brain matter that was sprayed up his arm had dried a little but was coming off. The worst part was the stuff stuck in the hairs of his arm. It was stubborn, but it came out. He jerked his head over toward Andre and said, "How's he doing?"   
"He'll be fine. I got some bandages for his nose when he gets it all cleaned up."   
"Well," said Jack as he stood up and shook the water from his hand and arm. "here is what we are going to do. You, Ricky, Carlos and Benito are going to stay here and and bury Juan. Then I want you to get in the van and drive the girl straight to El Huerto. That girl is in perfect condition, and when she gets to El Huerto, she better be in the same condition as she is now. I don't have to tell you why, right?"   
Eddie swallowed hard and shook his head. About a year ago, one of the new guys had messed around with one of the girls. Jack had made the rest of the boys watch while he "dismantled" the new guy with a Bowie knife, a barbecue, and a pair of grill tongs. The boys had played straight with him from then on out, and there had never been a repeat of the problem. A few of the boys had even turned into vegetarians that day. Jack was particularly proud of that little piece of information. It took a special kind of something to be able to change a man's appetite for life.   
"The rest of the boys will come with me. We're going to head back north and see if we can't snag us a drunken college girl later tonight. You tell Mr. Crawford that we'll probably get back to El Huerto tomorrow afternoon. Any of the boys give you any shit, you tell them that I told you that you were the man. Any questions?"   
"No, I got it."   
"Good deal. We're going to mount up and head back up the road. See you tomorrow, Eddie." Jack walked back up to Eddie's van and climbed up into the back with Juan. There was a loud cracking sound and he stepped back out a second later. "Paulo, Roberto, Jesus, Manny, and Tony, you're with me. Jesus, you help me move the girl to the other van." They threw open the side door on the van and each of them grabbed one of the girl's arms. They carried her carefully to the other van and slid her in as the other boys pulled Juan's carcass out the back. She pushed herself up against the far side of the van and closed her eyes. Jack knew what she was doing. They all did this. They try to go to sleep, thinking that later they will wake up and find out it was all a bad dream. It never worked.   
Human nature was a funny thing. People could swear up and down there there were no two people on the planet that were alike, but when it came down to the nitty gritty, they all reacted the same way. First rage, then denial, and then finally resignation. Jack knew that by the time he got back to El Huerto the next afternoon, she would be staring blankly at the walls of her cell. They all did. 

Well after midnight, Franchesca Morales was awaken by the clattering of tools and the pounding of a wooden mallet. She leaned up to rest on her elbows, blinking and trying to wake up. When her vision had cleared enough for her to see, she saw that the clock read a quarter to eleven. She pulled back the blankets and threw her legs over the edge of the bed. What was Papa doing?   
She stumbled through the house and out into his shop. It was pitch dark in there, but then again, he didn't need the lights, did he? She waved her arm around in the air until her hand found the string that turned on the light, and then she gave it a tug.   
Papa was sitting at his bench carving away. He hadn't heard her come in or turn on the light, as his hearing wasn't very good anymore, either. He was talking to himself, mumbling and swearing, and telling someone to leave him alone. She walked up behind him quietly and whispered, "Papa?"   
He stopped talking and raised his head to listen. "That you, Frannie?" She looked past him at the chunk of wood he had clamped in his vice. It was turning into a head and the face looked familiar.   
"What are you doing up so late? It's almost eleven." Her grandfather was an early to bed, early to rise kind of man.   
"I know, but I got this gringo and an old crow that won't let an old man sleep. They say I got to get up out of bed right now and get to work" Suddenly he whirled on his work bench, turning from Franchesca and shouting across the room, "Goddamnit! Leave me be! I'm trying to talk to my granddaughter!"   
Frannie jumped at her grandfather's volatile outburst, her eyes scanning the room. There was no one there, they were alone. "Please, papa, why don't you just go back to bed? You can work on this in the morning."   
"I would if they would let me, but they are wanting it done right now. They won't shut up about it for a goddamn second."   
Franchesca leaned over her grandfather, to get a closer look at the head and to get an idea of how much he had left to do on it. She knew how much detail her grandfather put into these things, and she figured that he had it three quarters of the way done. As she stared at the carving, recognition dawned.   
"Papa, this looks just like the american tourist that was in the shop today." She had never recognized one of his carvings before. The hair on the back her neck was standing on end, and a cold breeze blew it's way down her spine.   
"Yes." said Papa. "He says bad things happened to him and his woman."   
"Are they dead?" Stupid question, she thought. Why would he be carving it if they weren't dead?   
"He says that he's dead. He says bad men took the woman."   
She covered her mouth with her hand and blinked back tears. I didn't even know them, she was thinking. Why was she getting so upset? Because of the cradle, she realized. This afternoon these people were thinking about babies. Now their lives were over. If things could change so quickly for them, couldn't they for anybody?   
Her grandfather sat with his head hanging down, listening to Franchesca sniff and wipe at her nose. "Go back to bed." he told her. "I shouldn't be too much longer."   
As she took one last look at her Papa's carving, she realized for the first time in her life that she really, _really_ believed in her grandfather's "gift". She had seen that face ten hours before, in the flesh, full of life. Now it was staring at her from a chunk of wood. All the others she had been able to pass off as coincidence, or to the heightened imagination of a grieving family. This she had seen with her own eyes. Eyes. Wait, she thought. This one was different than the ones he usually carved.   
"Why are his eyes open?" she asked him. "I thought you always made them with their eyes closed?"   
"That's because all the others want to rest in peace." said Papa. "Gringo here, he don't want to rest. He says he isn't ready to rest yet." He picked up one of his small chisels and began to shape the wood around the carving's ear.   
Franchesca rubbed her hand across her grandfather's shoulders for a minute, and then she turned to go back to her room. As she passed the string to the light, she gave it a tug, leaving her grandfather in the dark, with his ghosts. 

When she awoke again, it was to a loud shrieking sound. There was a slam a moment later and she realized she was hearing the doors to their old pick up truck. The clock read two thirty. There was another shriek, and another slam. Franchesca got out of bed and made her way to the front door. As she passed the windows in the living room, bright light burst through them. She blinked in temporary blindness and fumbled for the door. She got it open and stepped outside. The headlights on the pickup were on, and sitting inside were two distinct silhouettes. She skipped and tiptoed her way, barefoot, across the gravel driveway, saying, "Papa? What are you doing?"   
She came up on the passenger side of the truck and repeated herself, "What are you doing, Papa?" Looking past him, she saw the gringo's grave advocate sitting behind the wheel. He was complete, though it looked like papa might have borrowed some arms and legs from one of the other advocates. It sat up perfectly straight, it's blank eyes staring out the windshield.   
"He says he needs me to come with him." said Papa. "He says he needs me to talk for him."   
"This is crazy, Papa. I want you to get out and come inside."   
"I can't do that, Frannie. He needs me. He says not to worry."   
Franchesca reached for the door handle, prepared to drag her grandfather out of the truck if she had to. She was going to call the doctor in the morning, and that was all there was to it. Her Papa had been going steadily down hill over the last couple of years, but it had never been this bad. Sure, he occasionally had an accident in his pants, or forgot who Frannie was, but nothing like this-   
It moved.   
The thing behind the wheel reached up and turned the key in the ignition. Frannie screamed and jumped back away from the truck. Fear immobilized her. The truck's starter turned over a couple of times and then started up.   
"He's says not to worry. I'll be fine." Papa told her.   
The thing slipped the truck into reverse and backed out of the driveway. Franchesca's paralysis broke and she ran down the driveway, ignoring the stabbing pain in her feet. The truck slid out into the street, the clutch ground angrily for a second and then they lurched away down the street. Franchesca stood in the middle of the empty street, shaking so hard her teeth rattled. Across the street, a crow cawed to her from it's perch upon an light pole. It jumped into the air with a flurry of wings and followed the truck down the road. 

At first, Aldero thought he was dreaming. It wasn't exactly a believable situation to wake up and find an old blind man and a life size marionette sitting on your coffee table. Behind them, Melrose Place played in badly dubbed spanish.   
"Are you awake, Aldero?" the old man asked.   
Aldero stared at him for a couple more seconds and then, uncertainly, he said, "Yes. What's this about?" He was pretty sure that he was dreaming, but figured he ought to play along. He couldn't ever remember questioning whether he was dreaming in a dream before. Also, there was something else. He could smell freshly cut wood. He usually didn't smell things in his dreams, but he could clear as day smell the sap on that marionette fellow. He sat up on the couch, and leaned back, taking in the odd couple that had invaded his apartment.   
"I am here to act as his voice." said the old man.   
Aldero waved his hand in front of the old man's face, which got no reaction whatsoever. He was blind, all right.   
"He says he has questions for you, and the quicker you are to answer them the easier this will be on you."   
"And just who is it that's asking these questions?" asked Aldero. This was definitely the weirdest fucking thing to ever happen to him. It had to be a dream. Shit like this didn't happen in real life.   
The old man reached over slowly and put his hand on the wooden puppets shoulder.   
Aldero snorted out his nose when he laughed "Ok, I've had just about enough of this." he said. His hand slid under the pillow he had been resting his head on and found nothing.   
"Your gun isn't there." said the old man.   
This wasn't adding up, thought Aldero. How can a blind man break into my home and steal the gun out from under my head without me hearing a sound or feeling a thing? He kept finding his eyes drawn back to the marionette and it's wooden stare. Does the hair on the back of your neck stand on end when you are dreaming?   
"He wants to know what they have done with his wife."   
"What are you talking about?" asked Aldero. There was a hint of panic in his voice, he just couldn't get a grasp on this situation. Why was he getting this feeling of dread from an old blind man? He could kill him with his bare hands! Why this terror? This fear so intense he couldn't lift himself off of the couch?   
"He says you drive a taxi." said the old man. "A man was killed today, and a woman was taken. He wants to know where she was taken."   
"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!" snarled Aldero. He shoved forward off of the couch and reached for the old man.   
"Oh, Jesus! " said the old man, sudden panic creeping into his voice. Something told Aldero that it wasn't him that the old man was frightened of.   
"What?!' said Aldero, his eyes sweeping around the room.   
"He said to thank god that I am blind."   
The marionette's arm moved in a blur, snapping up at the elbow. In it's hand it held a twelve inch long wood chisel. It's tip was a bright silver color, as it had been sharpened recently. The arm slammed down, and the chisel went in through the top of Aldero's bent knee. He screeched like a young girl as the wooden thing leaned forward. It wrenched on the chisel and Aldero's knee popped loudly. There was wet sounds and the crunch of gristle, like a dog chewing on a bone. Aldero's screech went up the scale until the notes were so high they could no longer be heard. The wooden thing leaned closer until it's face was just inches from Aldero's gaping mouth.   
"He says to breathe." said the old man.   
Aldero gasped loudly and was going to scream again, but the thing covered his mouth with it's free hand. Aldero stared into it's face and shuddered. It's face was blank, devoid of expression. It took rage to do what this thing was doing, but this thing's face was a blank slate.   
"Where did they take the girl?" asked the old man.   
Aldero's eyes were dumping tears and twitches criss crossed his face like electrical arcs on a bad circuit board. He was making a high whining sound in the back of his throat. "South." he mumbled against the wooden things hand. It removed the hand and he repeated himself, this time in a clearer voice. "There's a place down the coast where they take them. It's called El Huerto."   
(The old man flinched at the name.)   
"Why did they take her? What are they going to do with her?" The old man's voice was unsteady. Aldero knew that he didn't want to be here. Who would want to be a part of this?   
"I don't want to say what they do. "Aldero sobbed. "Just kill me. You don't want to know what they do with them."   
The wooden thing slowly slid the chisel out of Aldero's knee and raised it up so that it's tip rested right below his cheek bone. Aldero could feel the blood from his knee running down his jaw.   
"Tell him." said the old man.   
The chisel started bearing down on his face, it's tip cutting through his cheek and into the high part of his gums. "Nuh, nuh, nuh..." was all Aldero could manage to say.   
"Tell him." the old man repeated. "He says to spill your guts, or he will spill your guts." The old man's hand were grasping the edges of the coffee table and his knuckles were turning white. He looked green around the gills.   
Like a car that's spinning it's tire's, Aldero's mind found some traction and his mouth shifted into drive. He told them what they did to the girls. He spilled his guts, he told them everything.   
When he was done, the wooden man stood up and picked up the automatic pistol that had been sitting behind him on the table all along. Hey, that's mine, thought Aldero to himself. It raised the gun and put three bullets in Aldero's head. Behind him, the blind man raised his hands up in front of his face and stared at them. 

Jesse made his way through the small apartment, opening drawers and sifting through the contents. In the bedroom, he pulled out a drawer on the night table and found two extra clips for the .45 automatic and a box of bullets. The drawer also contained some heroin works and a small stash of the drug. The wooden man took the ammunition and left the rest in the drawer. He moved on, going through drawers and searching the closet. He found a beat up pair of Levi's, a jean jacket, and a straw cowboy hat, which he dressed himself in. He wanted to pass as human at least at a glance, and clothes would go a long way to that end.   
Jesse stuck the handgun in the waist band of his trousers and shoved the ammunition in the pockets of his jacket. He started back toward the living room, but stopped when he caught a glimpse of movement across the room. His hand snatched the gun from his pants and he spun around. There was another person there, and they were holding a gun on him. Jesse squeezed off a shot, which was answered with the sound of breaking glass. Cracks spread out like spider's webs across what he now realized was only a mirror. It was his own reflection that had startled him. He crossed the room and took a good look at himself in the mirror's broken surface. It was an odd thing, to look into a mirror and see anything but your own face staring back at you. He studied his reflection, turning his head to the left and right and watching the way the light danced across the wooden surface. He felt a sense of both fascination and horror. He was divided, half entranced by the miracle of what he was, half screaming in terror at what he had become. There was a sense of claustrophobia, a feeling that he was trapped in this wooden form.   
~You're wasting time~ He heard the Crow say. It was waiting for them on the fire escape outside the apartment's window. ~There's more killing that needs to be done.~   
_I'm coming. said_ Jesse as he turned away from the mirror. Jesse couldn't speak, but the old man and the bird could hear his thoughts, which worked just as well. He went clomping into the living room, his wooden feet sounding like horse's hooves on the floor. _Where is the next one?_   
~There are some up the road a little ways. The one who shot you is with them~   
_Good. Then we'll go get them next. _Jesse took the old man by his arm, preparing to help him to his feet.   
"Wait." said the old man. "What about your wife?"   
Jesse stopped a pulling on his arm and said, _What?_   
"You wife. The woman you came back for. What about her? Shouldn't we be going to get her?"   
~Shut up, old man.~ said the Crow. ~You're forgetting your place in all of this~   
_No, he's right. What was I thinking? I have to go get Mandy. Who knows what's happened to her already!_   
~We'll get to her in time. Right now, you have wrongs you have to set right. Heads that need to roll. Now is not a good time to get distracted~   
"It's lying." said the old man. "It doesn't care what happens to your wife. All it cares about is the killing."   
_What is he talking about? _Jesse turned toward the Crow. He sounded like he was beginning to panic.   
~Look,~ said the bird. It's tone was both annoyed and condescending. ~there is a certain way that these things are done. Punishing evil comes first. Revenge is why you were brought back. Everything else comes second. If we do it quickly, there will be plenty of time to get to your wife. If we dilly dally then, then yes, she will probably die. Right now, we are wasting time. I don't write the rules, I'm just here to guide you through this and make sure you stick to them.~   
_Fuck you._ said Jesse. _And fuck your rules. You heard what that piece of shit said they did to the women. If you think I'm going to let her go through that you got another thought coming, and here it is, fuck you. I'm going to go get my wife._   
The wooden man reached down to help the old man up.   
~I can't let you do that.~ said the Crow.   
Jesse's wooden body went limp and he fell to the floor in a heap. Suddenly, it was so much lifeless wood. Jesse's spirit hung in the middle of the room, without form. It took him a moment to realize what had happened.   
_What in the fuck?!_   
_ "_What is happening?" demanded the old man.   
~I can give the gift of life~ said the bird. ~I can also take it away. I can end this all right here. If you don't play by the rules then we don't do this at all. Is that understood?~   
_I'll fucking kill you! You little shit, I'll tear your fucking head off!_   
~You have the right attitude, Jesse, but your focusing it in the wrong direction. We are here to kill the men that shot you and took your wife. That is all we are here for. If you do the job quickly and get to your wife in time, then she will be saved. I have no problem with that. But our first concern is the men I told you about that are just up the road. You must understand this. We do it the way it is meant to be done, or we don't do it at all. Are you still with me?~   
Jesse was consumed with rage, but knew that without a body there was nothing he could do about it. He took a moment to calm down, and his spirit sighed. _I can't just let them hurt my wife, you bastard. You can't do this to me._   
_ ~_If you do it my way, at least there is a chance she will escape unharmed. If you stop now, she will die. She will be tortured, no doubt about it. It's your choice.~   
"There is no choice." said the old man. "He was right. You are a bastard."   
~Well, since I don't hold the opinion of killers in high regard, please don't be offended if I don't break into tears when you call me that. Jesse. Make a decision. Do we keep going, or does this end right here?~   
_It's like Mr. Giminez said. There is no choice. I do it your way._   
~Very well.~ said the bird.   
A moment later, Jesse was back in the wooden grave advocate, staring up at the ceiling. He grabbed hold of the coffee table the old man was sitting on and pulled himself to his feet.   
~Now, if we're done dicking around, we need to get going. Get to the highway and head south. When I find the men we're after I'll come get you.~   
Jesse nodded in reply, and got the old man up. The Crow took wing outside, leaving them to themselves. Neither of them spoke as they went out of the apartment and down to the truck. Jesse got Mr. Giminez into his seat and then went around to the driver's side. He sat the pistol on the seat between them, started the truck, and drove towards the highway. 

_What did he mean?_ asked Jesse.   
The old man started; having been lost in his own thoughts. When someone else's voice suddenly speaks up in your head it can be very disconcerting. Even after all these years he had never gotten used to it. "What? Who?"   
_The Crow._ replied Jesse. Angelo realized for the first time that when Jesse spoke he understood what he was saying. Well, he had been understanding all along, but he just realized that he shouldn't be able to. He didn't know english and as far as he knew, Jesse didn't know spanish. But somehow he was understanding the words Jesse was speaking. What language was he speaking in, anyway?   
"What did he mean by what?" he said back to the wooden man and paid careful attention to what language he spoke when he replied.   
_He called you a killer._ It was spanish. Fluent, flawless spanish. He was almost certain that Franchesca had had to interpret for the man when he was in the shop with his wife.   
"A long time ago I was a very bad person." said Angelo.   
_And now you're not?_   
"I've tried very hard not to be. Someone gave me a second chance and I've done my best to take full advantage of it. I tried to live a good life and hoped it would make up for a little of the harm I had done."   
_You don't think it has?_   
"Apparently not." said the old man. "I'm here now, paying for my sins."   
_You don't like what I'm doing, do you?_   
"Who would? But I deserve it. Penance is not meant to be easy."   
_Who was it?_ asked Jesse.   
"Who was what?"   
_The one who gave you a second chance._   
"Someone like you." said the old man.   
Jesse got quiet. He was probably Angelo yawned and thought about maybe trying to get some sleep. Something was bothering him, though. He had to know.   
"When did you start speaking spanish?" he asked.   
He heard Jesse chuckle quietly in his head. _I was just wondering when you learned english._   
"This has been a strange night." the old man said. He leaned his head against the passenger side window and tried to go to sleep. He was just starting to nod off when he heard the Crow's screeching voice.   
~I found them~ it said. 

San Allajandro was just another resort town on Mexico's west coast, the kind that was all but abandoned during the winter months but bursting at the seams with tourists during the summer. College kids from all over the states came here to get themselves drunk, high, and laid. They indulged freely in activities that would have made their parents (had they known) die from shame.   
The truth was, many of their parents had no idea that their children had even left the country. They told their moms and their dads that they were going to Disneyland or a concert the next state over, borrowed a couple of hundred dollars, and then they hopped into a van packed with friends and they all made a run for the border. If something were to happen to them there was very little chance that anyone would know where to look for them.   
To a man like Jack Goodreau they were exactly what he was looking for.   
The van full of kidnappers pushed it's way through the crowded streets, Jack in the passenger seat watching the revelers making fools of themselves. He saw one girl sitting on the shoulders of what he supposed was her boyfriend. She raised her shirt, showing him her bare breasts. Her boyfriend, who looked inebriated, lost his balance and they both fell backwards into the crowd around them He saw young men projectile vomiting in open alley ways, their buddies slapping them on the back and laughing. At one point a fight was breaking out. Jack could tell by the way they moved that neither of the boys knew how to fight, they were just trying to do what they had seen in movies. A lot of posturing, a lot of dramatic looking but ultimately ineffectual punches. It was comical. He could have cleaned both their clocks and those of the crowd gathered around them all by himself. Someone threw a bottle and it's broke against the side of the van. He ignored it. Any retaliation would only serve to draw attention to themselves, something they didn't want to do.   
He spotted a dance club up ahead and told Manny to pull into the parking lot next to it. The driver nodded and when he got close enough did as he was told. The spaces were all taken so they continued back towards the back of the club and pulled in behind the building. There was a space next to a dumpster where they could park the van.   
Jack turned in his seat so he could address the men sitting in the back of the van. "Ok, boys, you know the drill. Don't make any moves on anybody until you get a nod from me. Tony, Jesus, Roberto, you're the sleazy rapists. Me, Manny, and Paulo are the knights in shining armor."   
Jesus groaned. "Why we always have to be the rapists, boss? We could be the knights."   
"Cause you're ugly as fuck and no woman would trust you." Jack told him. "Do as you're told."   
The other men sneered at Jesus, who scowled back at them. "I'm not ugly." he said, sounding offended.   
"You're so ugly that the goats make you wear a bag on your head before they'll let you fuck them." said Roberto. The rest of the men laughed and even Jack had to chuckle.   
"Ok, that's enough." he said. "Get your mind on the job. I don't want any fuck ups like this afternoon."   
They answered with, "Sure, boss." and "Yes, sir.". He nodded and pulled the van door open. They disembarked and split into the predetermined groups of rapists and shining knights, the rapists heading toward the front of the club, the shining knights crossing the parking lot and hanging out by the arcade next door. Manny pulled out a pack of smokes and lit one up. He offered one to Paulo, who accepted. He knew he needn't bother with Jack, who didn't smoke.   
Jack was watching the corner of the club, where he could see the "Rapists" loitering and making rude comments at some of the young women passing by. They were careful who they made those comments to, choosing the groups of girls without boyfriends in tow. They didn't need that kind of trouble.   
After waiting for about forty five minutes, a pair of twenty year olds came walking past them. Jack saw Jesus look over at him and Jack gave him a nod. The three Rapists began to trail the girls, grabbing their crotches and asking them if they wanted to party. The girls told them to go fuck themselves and quickened their steps. The Sleazy Rapists doubled their speed, moving between the girls and the street and blocking the way down the sidewalk. The girls shouted for the men to leave them alone and then turned to get away from them, heading into the parking lot where Jack was waiting. Jack and the other shining knights watched the scene as they came closer to them, taking in the details. One of the girls was reaching into her purse. She pulled out a small metal canister, which she concealed in her palm. Mace. They would have to be careful. At least it wasn't a gun.   
The girls were about ten feet away from them with the Sleazy Rapists hot on their trail. Jack stepped out away from the arcade's wall and said, "Excuse me, Miss, are these guys giving you any trouble?"   
The girls turned towards him and relief shown on their faces. Jack had to fight to keep from smiling.   
"These assholes," one of the girls said, indicating the Sleazy Rapists with a thumb jerked over her shoulder. "won't leave us the hell alone."   
Jack turned to Jesus and said, "You got a problem, buddy?"   
Jesus stopped in his tracks and looked like he was sizing Jack up. Jack gave him the cold eye.   
"I ain't got no problem." said Jesus.   
"Good." Jack told him. "You and your buddies should go sleep it off. The girls aren't interested."   
The sleazy rapists called the girls cock teasing bitches and turned back towards the street.   
"Thanks." said the girl who had the mace.   
"No problem." said Jack. "You know, it's not safe for two women to be walking alone in this town."   
"I know." said the girl. "We couldn't get a cab."   
"We could give you a ride." Jack told them. "Where are you staying?"   
The girls looked at each other and hemmed and hawed. You could tell they were the kind of girls that didn't take rides from strangers, but walking seemed a lot more dangerous at the moment, and besides, this guy had just saved them from who knows what. "We got rooms at some place over by the beach." one of them said finally. "If you could take us there we would be eternally grateful.   
"That's fine." said Jack. "We were just about to call it a night anyway." He turned around and told Paulo and Manny that they were going to give these girls a lift back to their hotel room. Of course, Paulo and Manny were fine with that. "Our ride is parked back here." he told the girls as he headed toward the van. They followed behind, telling him what a lifesaver he was.   
"Think nothing of it." he said. "My momma would box my ears if she found out that I let two girls go wandering off on their own in a place like this." He even threw in a little southern accent to add to his picture of wholesome goodness. He was just a good ole' boy, never meanin' no harm. . . He walked up to the van, threw the sliding door on the side open and invited the girls to step inside with a wave of his arm.   
As the first girl stepped in she looked the interior of the van over and asked, "What do you guys use this for?"   
"To pick up chicks." Jack told her, jokingly. The second girl got in and then Paulo and Manny quickly followed her. A few seconds later, Roberto, Tony, and Jesus came running around the corner and jumped through the open side door of the van. The girls didn't even have time to scream. The five men inside the van quickly forced them to the floor and then bound and gagged them, moving as fast as calf ropers at a rodeo. They had practiced this a thousand times and performed their duties without a hitch. Jack looked around as he slid the side door closed and then opened the passenger door. No one saw anything. He loved it when an operation went well.   
By the time he had gotten into his seat Manny was in the drivers seat and had the engine started. The girls were screaming through their gags, shrieking in rage and fear. Once they got out on the highway he would have to go back there and show them the thumb-in-the-jaw trick and quiet them down. For the time being the gags were muffling their cries enough that no one outside could hear.   
Manny dropped the van into reverse and started to back up. Headlights flashed in the rear view mirror. Jack turned in his seat to check out the situation. A beat up, old pick up had pulled into the parking lot and was moving their way. It was picking up speed. It was coming right at them.   
"Oh, shit." he said, reaching out to brace one hand against the dash. They were rear ended, hard. Their van was shoved forward and it crashed into the dumpster, caving in it's side. The men in back were thrown sprawling. Manny was thrown forward and smacked his nose into the steering wheel. Jack was stunned for only a moment, and then he took action. He reached his foot over and stomped on the gas pedal. The van's engine roared and it leapt backwards, smashing into the front of the truck and driving it across the parking lot into the arcade. They came to a slamming stop as the back of the pickup came into a violent collision with the brick wall.   
The pick-up driver threw open his door and was bailing out.   
"Drive." he told Manny. Manny was trying to shake the dizziness from his head. Jack reached over and slapped him, hard. Manny snapped out of it.   
"What?"   
"I said, Drive."   
Manny collected himself, grabbed the wheel, shifted into drive and floored the gas. The van jumped forward. It sounded like their bumper was ripped off as they disengaged from the front of the pick up truck. The driver of the truck was running after them. In his right hand he carried an automatic pistol. Quickly covering the distance between them, he jumped up and grabbed the door handle on the back doors of the van. Jack pushed him self out of his seat and moved towards the back of the van, reaching up under his jacket into his shoulder holster for his gun. One of the back doors was wrenched open and cool night air rushed in through it. A second later the shape of the truck driver filled the doorway. He shoved the automatic into the van, aimed at the nearest of Jack's men and opened fire. The sound of gunfire was deafening in the confined space of the van's interior and Jack could feel his ear drums taking a beating. The flashes from the automatic's barrel lit up the darkness like a strobe light. Blood and gore from one of the men in the back of the fan was splattering up into Jack's face. He returned fire, squeezing off all six rounds in quick succession. He knew each one hit home. He knew because he knew how good he was with a pistol at this range. He knew because he saw the attacker's body jerk with every shot. He didn't fall, though, he clung tenaciously to the back of the van.   
Jack dropped his empty weapon and rushed toward the back of the van, stomping over bodies as he moved. He hit the truck driver like a wrecking ball, driving him off of the back of the van. They both fell in a tangle onto the concrete of the parking lot. Jack was stunned to find that their attacker did not be seem to be a creature of flesh and blood. He had known as soon as he piled into it that this was not meat and bone he was hitting. It was something much harder. He hit the ground hard, taking skin off of his forearms and elbows. His opponent landed with a strange clunking sound, like it you threw an armload of two-by-fours onto a hard surface. Jack scrambled to his feet, reaching into his boot as he did and pulling out a knife. The other man had gotten up and was looking at the ground around them. He had dropped his gun. Knife clenched in fist, Jack closed in on him.   
The light was messing with his eyes, he thought. This guy looks funny. He thrust the knife at his gut. The tip of the blade struck a hard surface and was brought to a sudden stop. The man lashed out with his elbow and caught Jack in the side of the head. It hurt like bejeezus, making his vision swim. He stumbled away, trying to recover. He felt a hand grab his shoulder and jerk him back. Jack reacted instinctively, his training kicking in. He spun toward his attacker, grabbing the wrist of the hand on his shoulder and twisting it. The other hand came up and the palm of it hit his attackers elbow and snapping it over backwards. He followed through with a sweep to the side of the knee that ended up hurting Jack more than his opponent. He felt like he had kicked a wooden pole. His shin would be badly bruised, if it wasn't broken. He looked it in the face, trying to gauge by it's expression how much pain he had just dealt it. There was nothing there. It's face was blank, devoid of emotion. Like a doll's face. He shoved himself away from it, cringing at the pain in his leg.   
"What in the fuck are you?" he shouted at it.   
It said nothing as it started his way. Jack scanned the ground for any sign of the automatic that had been dropped. He spotted it, laying under the back of a silver mazda. He moved toward it at a limping run. The thing moved to cut him off. Bright lights and a roaring engine caught their attention. Jack turned to see the van barreling towards them. Manny had got it turned around and was charging at them with the gas pedal on the floor. Jack jumped out of the way but the attacker had no time. It was struck by the front of the van and thrown up over the front of it. It's thrashing body turned the wind shield to spider webs as it bounced off. It fell somewhere over on the drivers side. Jack got to hs feet and stumbled the few steps to the passenger door and drug himself inside.   
"Go!" he said. Manny gunned the engine and tore out of the parking lot. Jack looked back and could see that thing getting up again. What in god's name was it? It was heading back to it's pick up. "Get us the hell out of this town, quick." He looked in the back to assess the damage. Roberto was dead and Jesus and Paulo were both hit. They looked like they would survive. Both of the girls were untouched.   
"Boss?" Manny was looking at him out of the corner of his eye.   
"Yeah?"   
"What the fuck was that thing?"   
"Don't know." said Jack. "What ever it was, I don't like it." 

The Crow stood on the hood of the pickup, cawing and screeching in anger. ~ What the fuck, Jesse?! Hurry up! They're getting away!~   
Ignoring the bird, Jesse got back into the pick up and sat the pistol down on the seat. _There's something wrong with my arm._ he said.   
There was no reply from the old man. Jesse turned to look at him. He was dabbing at his forehead where a little blood was trickling down between his eyes.   
_Are you okay?_ he asked, suddenly feeling genuine concern for Angelo.   
"Yes." said the old man. "I don't think it's bad. I hit my head on the dash when you stopped so fast."   
_I'm sorry_. said Jesse. _I got a little out of control when I saw them in that van. Got a little nuts. Forgot I had a passenger for a second there._   
"I'll fine." said Angelo. "It just stings a little. You said there was something wrong with your arm?"   
_He did it when we were fighting. Broke something on my elbow._   
Angelo reached over and ran his hands up Jesse's arm, feeling around at the joint. "Don't worry." he told Jesse. "You just tore one of the leather straps that holds the joint together. Nothing a hammer and nail couldn't fix. There should be some in the tool box in the back. Get them and I'll have it fixed in no time."   
The Crow smacked it's beak into the windshield repeatedly, the avian version of a temper tantrum. ~ Are you deaf now, too? They're out on the highway by now, stupid! You think this hunk of shit is going to be able to catch up with that van? What are we doing here?~   
_Look_, said Jesse. _He broke my arm. This truck is a stick shift. If I don't get the arm fixed we aren't going anywhere. Relax, shut the fuck up and let us get it done._   
He then turned to Angelo, said _Be right back_. and threw the truck door open. He stepped around and leaned into the back of the pick-up, rummaging through the tool box he found there. There was a hammer in there and a little milk carton full of nails. He grabbed a couple and then got back into the truck Angelo accepted them from him and told him to take off the jacket.   
"I need you to put your arm on something solid so I can drive the nail."   
_Would the dash work?_ asked Jesse.   
"Yes, that should be fine."   
Jesse scooted over, closer to Angelo, and put his arm up on the dashboard where the old man could reach it. Angelo stuck the nails point first into his mouth and bit down on them, so he would have easy access.   
_Okay, see if that will work._   
The old man reached out, timidly, feeling for Jesse's arm. He used the hand holding the hammer to mark the spot and then reached up with his other hand and took one of the nails he was holding in his teeth. "This is going to be tricky."   
_I can hold the nail and strap in place if that would help._   
Angelo nodded and gave him the nail. Jesse put the strap into roughly the same position it had been before and then placed the nail into position.   
_Ready._   
The old man found the nail with his free hand and started tapping the nail gently with the hammer. Jesse stared, amused that he was sitting here watching a blind man drive a nail into his elbow. It was surreal.   
Angelo gave the nail a couple more taps and said, "Well, that should do it."   
Jesse flexed the joint, and it did seem to be working just as well as it had before. _Thank you. _he said to Angelo.   
~Can we go now?~ squawked the Crow.   
Jesse started the truck and said, _Which way?_   
~It's about fucking time.~ 

They drove back to the spot by the Rio Bermeja. It was a regular pit stop on their hunting trips, a place where they could stop and collect themselves, relieve themselves if need be. It was far enough off of the highway that there was little chance of them being bothered here. Jack was taking time to patch up the nasty scrapes he had received when he had fought the. . . The Thing earlier.   
That was what he was calling it now. The Thing. He was sure that whatever it was that had attacked them wasn't human. It seemed to have been made out of wood, like some kind of life size string puppet or a hand carved mannequin. He saw no reason to try to fool himself, try to come up with other explanations for what he had seen, what he had touched. It was what it was. He had no way of knowing where it came from and why it had come after them.   
He simply hoped that they had lost it and that he wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. It scared him. Even with all his fighting skills and talents he had been left feeling very inadequate after the brief encounter he had shared with the thing. Those skills had been developed to help him hurt/maim/kill creatures of flesh and blood. This Thing had taken six .357 magnum rounds at point blank range and had been unfazed. So, he wasn't ashamed to admit, he hoped that his meeting up with the Thing had been a one time deal. On the other hand, if he absolutely had to face it again, he was hoping it would be after he had gotten some bigger guns. He had some that might do the trick back at El Huerto.   
Paulo and Jesus were also patching up their wounds. Jesus had taken two bullets in the gut and he was in a lot of pain. He was keeping it to himself, though. He knew what would happen to him if he became a hindrance to the operation in any way. He was gritting his teeth, breathing through the pain and hoping he would live long enough to see a doctor. Paulo had been luckier and had taken a round through the bicep and then a slight flesh wound on the same shoulder. Both were pretty clean wounds and would only take a few stitches, which he was administering himself. Manny and Tony had drug Roberto's body off into the surrounding grass fields to be buried in a shallow grave. That was the second body that had been buried here in the last twenty four hours.   
The two girls had managed to scoot themselves together and were now huddling against each other and quietly sniffling, trying to keep from making too much noise. Jack had given them the "Pain" speech earlier and they had taken him seriously.   
The sun was starting to come up when he saw Manny and Tony coming back to the van with small trench shovels in hand. They were both covered in reddish dirt and looked tired. Jack had already decided that he would drive back to El Huerto himself and he would let the boys sleep. They had been going for almost twenty four hours straight now and they were starting to wear down. They had been through a lot and he was going to talk to the higher ups and see if he couldn't get them some bonuses.   
He asked them if everything was ok and they said, yes. Roberto was buried and there had been no problems. Jack told them to go wash themselves off in the river and be ready to go in a few minutes.   
Having finished taping the bandages on his forearms and elbows, he put the supplies back in the medkit and leaned into the van to slide it under the seat. He looked between the seats and into the back of the van where he could see Jesus shivering and clutching at the bloodied bandages on his gut.. He was dripping in sweat, obviously in huge amounts of pain but trying to hide it. Jack watched him for a second, trying to decide whether it was something he needed to deal with. He came to a decision, took the medkit back out and opened it. He removed all the band aids, gauze, ace bandages, and anti-septic ointments, revealing a key hole in the bottom of the med kit. The key to the lock was on the ring in his pocket. The medkit had a false bottom. He unlocked it and then lifted the false bottom out, revealing a stack of hundred dollar bills (petty cash) and small plastic container that held five syringes. Jack removed one of the syringes and then put everything else back like it was.   
Going around to the side door, he climbed into the back of the van and knelt down next to Jesus. The wounded man looked at him and when he saw the needle in Jack's hand his face started to screw up   
"Please, Jack. No. I'm fine, I'll be okay. Don't kill me." Tears began to run down his cheeks. He wanted to live.   
"Relax." Jack told him. "It's just morphine. To help with the pain. You're doing fine, Jesus. Just keep doing what you're doing." He uncapped the needle and then injected the contents into Jesus' thigh. "There. That should help. We got about four hours until we get home. You think you can handle that?"   
The morphine was already taking affect on Jesus, turning his eyes to glass. He smiled, dreamily and said, "I'll be fine, boss."   
"That's what I want to hear." Jack recapped the needle and tossed it out into the surrounding grassland as he exited the back of the van. Manny and Tony were coming back up from the river looking a little cleaner. He told them to mount up and rounded the van to the driver's side.   
They were halfway back up the dirt road leading to the highway when he saw the pick up. Jack took one look at it and knew it was the pick up that had been driven by their attacker the night before. The front end of the truck was bent and scraped where the van had crashed into it. The truck was parked crossways on the narrow little track, blocking their way. Jack brought the van to a stop about fifty feet back from it, taking time to look the situation over. The truck was empty. It looked like an ambush to Jack. The Thing was probably just this side of the truck, hiding in the grass on the side of the road, waiting for them to come a little closer so he could open up on them with that automatic.   
"Paulo, Manny, Tony." said Jack. "Get your guns. We got trouble." He drew his pistol out of his shoulder holster and thumbed off the safety before setting it in his lap.   
Manny appeared at his side, looking out through the cracked windshield. "Is that the same truck?" he asked.   
Jack nodded in reply.   
Manny checked the clip on his gun, a russian made AK-47. "What's the plan?" he asked as he slapped it back in and yanked back on the slide..   
The thing was, Jack wasn't sure. If they tried to ram the truck they would probably only succeed in killing the van, leaving them as sitting ducks for the Thing to pick off. Any attempt to move the truck would undoubtedly result in a gunshot to the head. They could all try to move into the grass fields on the side of the road, try to get around behind it and hope to catch it in a crossfire, maybe kill it somehow. He had his doubts about that, though. He had seen what this thing could do. Maybe try to go around the truck? The sides of the road were pretty steep, but if he got a run at it he might be able to get the van up onto the ledge, around the back of the pickup and then down back onto the road. They would have a good head start as it would take the driver of the pick up a few minutes to get it pointed back out towards the highway and moving. He could even have the boys take out the truck's tires once they had gotten around it, permanently disabling it. Out of all his options, this one sounded the best.   
"You boys hold on." he told his men. "I'm going to try to get around the truck. You see anything moving, shoot it and keep shooting it 'til it stops moving."   
Jack dropped the van into drive and floored the gas. The van threw dirt and gravel out the back as it jumped forward. He waited a second and then cranked the wheel, turning the van towards the ledge at the side of the road. The front wheels hit the ledge and bounced up over them. We just might make it! thought Jack. He resisted the urge to shout out a cheer but couldn't help grinning. A moment later the belly of the van grounded out on the ledge, high centering them. The back wheels spun, trying to shove them forward. No good, the van wasn't going up any further. He told the men in the back to move to the very back of the van, shifted into reverse and hit the accelerator. With a loud groan the van pulled itself back onto the road. He kept reversing, moving back down the road and away from the pick up. It was tricky, going this quickly down such a narrow road in reverse, but he was able to manage it. He wanted to put some distance between them and the truck, as he was fairly sure that the Thing was still waiting up there somewhere. When he felt he had reached a safe distance he slowed to stop and turned to face forward.   
It was there. The wooden man. The Thing. It was walking off of the side of the road out into the center. As he looked at it standing there in the early morning sun, he felt a chill. He was looking at a Thing that should not be. There was no natural explanation for such a creature.   
He could see how it had fooled him into thinking it was human the night before. the blue jeans, the jean jacket, the cowboy hat. If you didn't get a good look at it you would think it was just another mexican. But he was getting a good look at it. He could see the wood grain on it's face, the crude hinges that held the fingers on it's hands, the scratches and scrapes on it's wooden feet caused by walking on cement. He could see the pock marks on it's wooden chest were he had shot it the night before.   
In it's right hand it held that automatic pistol, a forty five by the looks of it. In the other hand it held a machete. It stopped in the middle of the road and turned to look right at Jack. Jack found himself unable to look away. Thought raced through his brain, thoughts like, "If this thing can be real, what other things might be out there?"   
The sound of Manny's voice right over his shoulder made him jump. "Boss? What in the fuck is that?"   
He shook himself out of his trance, calling himself a fool and resolving to take action. He was paid to handle situations like this. It was time to earn his pay.   
He was at the wheel of a two ton vehicle. Directly on the other side of the wooden man was another two ton vehicle. Whatever it was, if it was crushed between the two there was no way it could survive. He put the van in drive and put his foot down. The van fish tailed, found it's grip and charged forward at the Thing.   
The Wooden Man raised his pistol and fired. The windshield buckled in it's frame and fell in on top of Jack. He was driving blind then, unable to see through the sheet of broken Plexiglas that had fallen onto him. He thought he saw movement through the windshields fractured surface and tried to aim for it. They came to a jarring halt a moment later when the front of the van struck the side of the road. The back end swung around and firmly wedged itself against the ledge on the other side.   
Feeling trapped, Jack threw the door open and slid out from under the broken windshield. His gun! Cursing, he looked back into the van and saw it sitting on the floor board by the gas pedal. He snatched it up and turned around with it raised. Nothing in sight, so far. He ran up the dirt mound that made up the side of the road and around the front of the van, hoping he would see the Thing pinned beneath the van's bumper. No such luck. There was nothing there.   
Movement from the other side of the van snapped him into action and he came very close to blowing Tony's head off. Paulo, Tony, and Manny had gotten out of the van via the side door and were spreading out looking for their attacker. Jack knew he was getting too wound up about this, but he felt very out of control in this situation. He admonished himself and tried to calm down. He turned around and made his way back around the front of the van, his eyes on the tall grass on the side of the road. This was a shitty situation. They were very exposed and the Thing could be anywhere. Where had he gone after he shot out the windshield?   
A shot rang out and Paulo fell to the ground with an agonized cry. He had been hit in his ankle and it had been turned into a chunk of bloody hamburger. He clutched frantically at the side of the van and struggled to get to his feet.   
"Where did that shot come from?" yelled Jack.   
Tony shouted out in pained surprise from the other side of the van. That was followed by the sound of something wet falling onto the ground. The van shook on it's suspension as something heavy hit it from the other side. More gunfire. Jack ran toward the back of the van, scooping up Paulo's dropped uzi as he went past. He came around the back with both guns extended, ready to perforate anything that wasn't human. Tony was laying on the ground, the top of his head gone. He had been disemboweled and his entrails were splayed out over the lower half of his body. The Thing was no where to be seen. From the opposite side of the van came a meaty thunk, like the sound of a melon being split in two with a heavy blade. Paulo's cries of pain were cut short. It got quiet. So quiet that Jack could hear the muffled cries of the girls inside the van.   
A soft scraping sound. He saw Manny slowly circling the van, ak-47 held at his shoulder, ready to fire. Jack waved at him, caught his attention and then signaled that he wanted Manny to cover him. He lowered himself down carefully, and looked underneath the van, hoping to catch sight of their opponent's feet. It wasn't on the other side of the van, unless it was standing behind one of the wheels and he just couldn't see it.   
Hollow clunks, like the sound a horse's hooves make. They were coming from the top of the van. Jack rolled to the side, out away from the vehicle. He landed on his back, both guns aimed upward. The Thing was running along the length of the van, picking up up speed as it moved. Jack fired at it but knew he had little hope of hitting something moving so fast. He raked the the air with the uzi and hoped he would get lucky. The Thing was hit a few times. Jack saw shreds of cloth and splinters of woods exploding from it's legs and torso. It didn't slow down. It launched itself off of the van, leaping through the air in Manny's direction. Manny saw it coming and was opening up full auto with his AK. The rounds from his gun were taking chunks out of the Thing but doing nothing to stop it. As it closed in on him the Thing threw back the arm holding the machete and then brought it down with a crushing blow. The blade went in between Manny's neck and his shoulder blade and split him to his navel. Manny died with a look of shocked disbelief on his face.   
The Thing let go of the machete handle and allowed Manny's corpse to fall to the ground. It turned slowly, it's blank wooden eyes coming to bear on Jack.   
Jack felt his arms go limp and let them hang at his side, the guns dangling from his trigger fingers. He knew he was fucked. He still had some rounds left in both guns but using them would only be a waste of ammo. It was unstoppable. He watched it's gaze turn down to take in the guns in his hands and then come back up to his face. It's head tilted, almost questioningly. Jack let the guns fall to the ground and raised his hands above his head.   
The Thing walked over to the open side door of the van and looked in. It reached the gun in through the doorway and fired twice. Finishing off Jesus, no doubt. Jack figured that he was next. He toyed with the idea of making a break for it and running into the surrounding fields. What would be the point? It had found them here at Rio Bermeja. It would find him where ever he went. He would just stand still and hope that it would make it as quick for him as it had made it for Jesus.   
It walked back over toward him, waving the gun toward the side of the road. It took him a second but he realized that it was wanting him to walk in that direction. Jack turned and walked up the ledge into the tall grass. What was it going to do? Take him out into the field, make him kneel and put a round in the back of his skull? He had always known that there was a good chance that he would die on the job, but how could he have known it would be like this?   
The wooden man shoved him, altering his direction a little, keeping him moving where it wanted him. After about fifty feet it put hand on it shoulder and stopped him. It walked around him and then start to back away, keeping the gun trained on Jack's belly. It stopped ten feet away and then knelt down. When it stood back up it was helping an old man to his feet. He looked like was in his eighties with thin white hair and skin like leather. His eyes were cloudy and from the blank way he was staring off into space Jack guessed he was blind. What the hell was this?   
Thinking back, Jack thought he might have remembered seeing a passenger in the pick up truck the night before. Was this him?   
"I am here to act as his voice." said the old man. He was speaking in spanish.   
"What is this all about?"   
The old man tilted his head and waited for a second, as if listening for something. He nodded and said, "You took his woman. Yesterday afternoon you shot him in the head and took his woman away in a van like the one you drive."   
Jack thought about denying it but felt it would be foolish. It knew. "So, you're saying that this. . . Thing is the man we shot."   
The old man nodded.   
"What does it want?"   
Again, the old man stopped to listen to something that Jack could not hear. Then he said, "The woman. He wants the woman back safe and sound. And he wants your life. And the lives of everyone you work for and with. He says you are going to take us to the woman."   
Jack laughed. He was nervous and there was a quiver in his voice when he laughed. "Why in the hell would I do that? You already said he's going to kill me. Do me now, man. Let's get it over with."   
After a moment, the old man said, "He says there's two ways you can die. Quick. Painless. Or long and horrible. He can make you hurt."   
Jack knew about pain and torture. Hell, Jack was an expert in pain and torture. He knew that no matter how strong a man was, no matter how disciplined his mind was and how much pain he had been trained to tolerate, every man had his breaking point. He had never tried to fool himself into believing that he was unbreakable. He knew he could take a lot of pain, probably more than most people, but he also knew he had limits. He wished he had just put one of the guns to his head back when he still had one. Now he was at the mercy of the Thing and from the look of things, it wasn't big on mercy.   
"He wants to know what it's going to be." said the old man. "Take him to the woman and you get it quick. Or refuse and he goes to work on you. He says either way you are going to take him there. It all depends on how you want to go about it."   
The way Jack saw it, he had no real loyalty to his employers. He worked for them. That was it. And it wasn't like they had any loyalty to him either. Any time he had started messing up on the job and costing them money they would have had him killed. He saw no reason to try to protect them. Especially at his own expense. Besides that, if he did drive them to El Huerto it would take at least four hours. He got to live four hours longer. Four hours is a long time in a situation like this. Plenty of time for opportunities to present themselves.   
"I'll take you." he told them. That's right, he thought. I'll play along. Until the moment you slip up. Then it's good night, gracie. 

Mandy slowly came awake. She felt dead tired, like maybe she had spent the day before running a marathon. Her eye lids seemed to weigh a couple of tons a piece. Had she stayed up late the night before? As she tried to recall what she and Jesse had done the night before the events of the previous day unfolded in her mind. Memories of men pulling her from out of the taxi, being held against the floor of a van while she was bound and gagged. The sounds of a fight outside while her husband fought for their lives. The gunshot that she knew had taken him from her.   
No. That couldn't be. That wasn't what happened.   
Now, she didn't want to open her eyes. It could all have been a dream. An elaborate, very realistic dream. They had been drinking the afternoon before (or was that part of the dream, too?) and it could have made her have bad dreams. Ignore the fact that this didn't feel like the mattress at the hotel. It didn't matter that she couldn't hear Jesse's window rattling snore or feel the heat emanating off of his body. Maybe he had gotten up early. He could be out getting her coffee and breakfast. He knew she was hung over, and being the thoughtful person he was, he was getting her breakfast in bed.   
She felt the spot between her bottom lip and her chin start to pucker and quiver. It felt like there was a walnut stuck in her throat. Stop it! she barked at herself. There was no reason to cry. If any thing she should be crying tears of joy, joy that she had such a wonderful man that she could call her own. Her eyes squeezed shut, trying to hold back the tears. Mandy began to curl up, wrapping herself around the knot that was growing in her belly. It built up until she could hold it no longer. And then she let it go. It came out in a wail, a deep, throat ripping, from the very bottom of her being wail that reverberated off of the concrete walls of her cell. Her body hurt from the force of her grief but it was nothing compared to the hurt in her heart.   
She didn't have to open her eyes. It was all true. She had lost him. They had taken her and she was waiting here for god knows what, and she didn't really care what was going to happen to her because she had lost him. He was all that mattered. When she heard that gun fire she had known exactly what had happened. There had been no attempts to convince herself that he had gotten away or that he had somehow gotten his hands on a gun. She had known. She had felt him go. Something had been ripped right out of her at that moment. He was gone.   
How many minutes with him had she wasted? How many times had she been in his presence and not told him just how much he meant to her? How often did days go pass without her saying the words, "I love you."? How many hours had she wasted doing inconsequential things, like watching television or messing around in her flower beds when she could have been with him, making him understand how necessary he was? Those chances were all gone, cut short by a single bullet.   
Never again would she feel his hand in hers. His big hands, thick and calloused with dark hair on the back. Hands that were so strong, but so gentle when he touched her. Gone was the twinkle in his eye when he was putting her on. Gone was the way he would blush when she said something dirty. Never would she hear him stutter like he did when he tried to talk dirty back to her. Everything that was Jesse was gone.   
Mandy wept until she was dry and empty and then she drifted back to sleep, hoping that next time she awoke it would all have been a bad dream. 

When she awoke again, it was to the clanging of metal on metal. She opened her eyes and stared at the dirty concrete wall directly in front of her face. Her eyes felt swollen and raw and her head was aching. Her throat hurt when she swallowed. Her grief had left her feelinghung over.   
Someone was unlocking the door to her cell. She heard the bolt slip back with a bang and then the squeek of the hinges as the door opened. The only light in the cell had been that coming through a small opening at the top of the door and it had been meager at best. Now, with the door open, bright light flooded in and blinded her. Mandy reached up and covered her eyes with her arm.   
"On your feet." she heard a male voice say in english.   
Mandy didn't move. She hoped, foolishly, that if she acted like she didn't hear they would just go away.   
"You are dirty." said the voice again. "We're going to take you where you can shower and put on clean clothes."   
Still Mandy did nothing.   
"If you don't cooperate we will bring in a fire hose and clean you off that way."   
Mandy sighed, knowing that she didn't have a choice. She rolled over and got to her feet. There were two men standing in the door way She recognized them; both had been in the van that had driven her here the day before. Both had machine guns. They backed out into the hallway with the guns pointed at her and beckoned her to follow.   
"Don't try anything stupid." one of them said.   
She stepped out of her cell and found herself in a narrow hallway lined with doorways just like hers. What was this place? A prison. Surely not an official one.   
One of the men motioned with the barrel of his gun, indicating that he wanted her to move on down the hallway. Mandy did what they wanted and started to walk that way.   
"Just what is this all about?" she asked over her shoulder. It hurt to talk, but she had to know what was going on. "Why have I been kidnapped?"   
Neither of the men said anything as they followed her down the hall. They passed through a small room that must have served as a guard station. There was a couple of desks and a wall that was covered with monitors for security cameras. On the screens she glimpsed a garage, empty cells like her own, what looked like an orchard, a swimming pool. Whoever these people were, they certainly seemed to be well funded. She slowed down for a moment to look the room over. The man behind her gave her a soft shove and told her to keep moving. They left through a door on the other side of the room and started down another hallway.   
"Is this about money?" she asked. "Am I being ransomed?"   
"Right." said one of the men.   
"You're saying I've been kidnapped for money?" She turned to look at him.   
"No." he replied. "I want you to go to the right." He pointed at an open door way on the right side of the hallway.   
Mandy let out an exasperated sigh before going through the doorway and finding herself in a locker room. The men came into the room behind her, one of them stopping to shut the door while the other came walking over toward her. He took her by the arm and led her to the other end of the room where she could see what looked like the showers from a high school gymnasium. He took her to the edge of the showers and told her to strip.   
She hesistated. "You can't expect me to shower with you standing right there."   
He stared at her blankly, making it clear that arguing with him was pointless.   
"Can't you at least turn around?"   
Still nothing. She groaned and turned away from the man. How could someone treat another person like this? She hadn't done anything to anybody. Why was she being subjected to these indignities?   
This was very degrading. Jesse was the only man who had ever seen her undressed. Now, here she was, being forced to remove her clothes in front of a complete stranger. She could refuse, but they had already made clear that she would suffer if she didn't do as she was told. One thing she had learned since her kidnapping yesterday: No matter how bad it gets, it could be worse. They had proven it to her time and time again. Every time she had given them any trouble they had inflicted pain on her, convincing her that what they were asking was nothing in comparison to what they could do to her. She had learned quickly, and for the most part had done as she was told   
She looked over her shoulder as she removed her shirt. The man was still standing there, staring straight at her. She shook her head in disgust and turn to look forward. I have to know what this is all about, she thought as she unsnapped her bra and dropped it on the floor.   
"If this is all about money," she said to him. "then you guys picked the wrong couple. We aren't wealthy. (Weren't, she thought. Past tense) We don't even know anyone wealthy. It took us two years to save up another for this vacation."   
Still nothing from her voyeur friend. He must have been told to keep his mouth shut. Mandy kicked off her sandals and hissed when she felt how cold the floor was on her bare feer. She dropped her shorts and underwear and then quickly crossed the tile floor to where the knobs for the showers were. When she got the water going she was relieved to find that there was hot water. She almost laughed at that. Her husband was dead, she had been kidnapped and tortured but hey, at least there was hot water.   
  
While Mandy did not know it, there was a security camera up in the corner of the shower. It was hidden behind a grate and provided clear, high quality video footage of anyone who was using the showers. The view from that camera was on a computer monitor in the office of Will Crawford.   
Will was on the phone with a client. Will didn't know the clients name, he didn't even know where in teh world the client was calling from. They had come in contact through a middle man who set up ghost numbers for them to make calls through and ghost internet accounts for them to exchange files over. Any money that traded hands would be wired directly to overseas accounts. If either Will or the client were ever caught they would never have enough knowledge of the other to ever possibly incriminate them. Complete anonymity was essential in Will's business.   
At the moment he was letting the client get a look at what he was purchasing. The video was being broadcast over a broadband feed and somewhere in the world the client was watching Mandy in the shower and trying to decide if she was in fact the girl he wanted. Will, like any good salesman, was giving the client plenty of time to decide. After all, they were talking about a lot of money. Customer satisfaction was very important. A happy customer was a repeat customer.   
Finally, after several minutes of indecision the customer said, "She's the one I want."   
"Are you sure?" said Will. "We are supposed to be having a younger girl coming in a little later today. Maybe you would want to wait and get a look at her?"   
Silence from the other end of the line. Then, "No. I like her. She looks real. She looks a bit like my ex, if you know what I mean. "   
Will smiled. "I'm sure I do." he said. "Well, if you're sure then we are going to go get started. When we are done we'll contact the bank to verify funds and then we'll send the file to you with a password encryption. When you have recieved the file you can call and I will give you the password. Is that satisfactory?"   
"That will be fine." said the client.   
"Anything in particular you would like the woman to wear?"   
"Not really." said the client. "Nothing flashy and nothing slutty."   
"We'll find something that will suit you, I'm sure. Any questions?"   
What "any questions" really meant was, do you still want to go through with this? He always gavethem a chance to back out.   
He heard the clients exhale on the other end, a quiet quivering sound. He was nervous. He was probably sitting there thinking, "There's still time to call the whole thing off." He had this woman's life in his hands, he could decide her fate. Those thought were probably doing strange things to him, quickening his pulsing, making him flush, making bead of sweat pop out of his flesh. He was probably experiencing a strange sensation of absolute power. Power was an aphrodesiac and no doubt the client was sporting wood right now. Will knew what his clients were like. He understood them. He had to, to be able to fulfill thier needs. He knew what the client would say before he said it.   
"No." said the client, his voice sounding a little strangled. "I'm sure you will do a great job."   
"Very well, sir." said Will. "I'll be getting word to you a little later in the day."   
The client thanked him and hung up.   
Will set the phone back in it's cradle and leaned back in his chair while he watched the woman on his computer screen. She had finished showering and was trying to dry herself off and keep herself covered with the towel at the same time. The client had been right. She did look real. She was a real woman, no enhancements or cosmetic surgery. There was a bit of a pooch to her belly, a little sag in her breasts, her hips just a little too wide. She was real, natural. And that's what the client was paying for. Authenticity. 

Will went to see her an hour later. Ricky and Benito had returned the girl to her cell and locked her inside. She had been allowed to wear a terry cloth robe until other clothes were brought for her. Will had the clothes that she would be wearing in his hand. As he came down the row of cells Ricky and Benito got up from the guard station and hurried to get the cell unlocked for him. Ricky entered it first with his gun held casually at hip level, making sure she hadn't come up with any stupid ideas. When he was sure that all was kosher, Will stepped in, too. Benito remained out in the hall, leaning against the opposite wall   
The woman was curled up on the mattress on the floor, staring at the wall. Her hair was still wet from the shower. She was actually quiet pretty, he thought. She had the robe tucked carefully, trying to show as little flesh as possible. She was a modest woman. He liked that.   
"Mrs Reynolds?" he asked. "I have some clothes for you here. We'll talk while you dress." He had gotten her name from the drivers license they had found when they searched her clothes. Such a well prepared woman. Always thinking ahead. Always have your id on you, that way if anything should happen to you while you're on your vacation in mexico the police will know who you were. Sensible. He liked that, too.   
Mandy looked up at him, taking in his suit and the fact that he wasn't carrying a gun. She looked relieved. She must be happy to finally be speaking to someone in charge. He waited for her to get up and handed her the clothes. Will turned, giving her privacy while she dressed. Ricky watched her, his eyes showing little or no interest.   
"Do you know why you're here?" he asked.   
She was quiet for a moment. "Is it for ransom?"   
"No." he replied. "We produce movies here, Mrs Reynolds. Movies that are made specifically for a very elite, very wealthy clientelle. The upper one percent, if you follow my meaning."   
The sounds of her dressing had stopped. Will looked over at Ricky's face and saw a hint of a smile there. The look on the woman's face must have been priceless. She was no doubt trying to find some kind of rational reason why she would have to be kidnapped and her husband murdered to make a movie.   
"Mrs. Reynolds, if you would finish getting dressed I would appreciate it. I prefer to look at those I'm speaking to."   
He heard the rustle of cloth, a zipper, and then she said, "Ok."   
He turned and looked at her. She looked good. She was wearing a faded pair of blue jeans and a white button up shirt. Attracive, but not fancy. A down to earth kind of sexy.   
"What kind of movies are we talking about?" she asked. "Porn? Cause you're crazy if you think I'll do it." She looked disgusted and more than a little frightened.   
"Yes." said Will. "Pornography of a certain type. But to be perfectly frank, your cooperation is not even required. In fact, it's better if you resist."   
"Rape?"   
"Of the worst kind." he said, enjoying how nauseous she suddenly looked.   
She clutched at the hair on her temples and closed her eyes. She was trying to come to terms with her situation, trying to find some way out of it. The entire time she had been in this cell she had probably been telling herself that this was about a ransom. And if the ransom was paid she would be able to leave. If she had thought up other reasons for her kidnapping they probably paled in comparison to the truth.   
"Why?" She raised her head and looked her in the eye. "Why would you do this to another human being?"  
"Because the money is good." he told her. "The money is VERY good." He paused for a second, letting her take that in. Then he said, "It will happen in a couple of hours. You will be taken to a room we call "The Set". It's pretty much just a bare room, with a bunch of cameras and some drop cloths to add some background. We'll roll numerous cameras simultaneously while five well endowed men have thier way with you in every possible way. It will be bad. You can fight them if you want. You can punch, kick, bite. You can even try to make your mind go somewhere else, try to think of something happy. Anything you want to do is fine. What we are interested in is the realism. Our clients pay very good money for the real thing."   
He watched her as she tried very hard to keep her emotions under control. It was a loosing battle. Her eyes were watering and her mouth was contorting under the pressure of her emotions. She stepped forward suddenly and spit, splattering his face with saliva. Ricky stepped past Will quickly, putting the palm of his hand on her face and shoving her roughly across the room.   
Will took a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiped her spit from his face.   
"That was wonderful." he said. "You're going to be great."   


  
  
  
  



End file.
